Saudiís dirty game against its pilots

As a human being, I donít accept all the insults to any of my colleagues either saudis or not. It was a bad quote regarding non Saudi pilots are taking stuff from aircraft; ALL CREW AND STUFF OF SAUDIA ARE DOING THIS A BOTTLE OF WATER OR A MEAL. All the catering after flights is garbage. So , please we should not accuse our colleagues with stupid stories. I hope this crisis will be over soon. My sincere sympathy to all our colleagues who will go for 6 months unpaid leave. SAUDIA has no choice and I believe and hope it s the best for all. I hope and pray it will be over by June or July and all airlines will start flying at least at 50%. Again my full respect to all my expat colleagues. It s always a huge rich experience with in all aspects of life. WE ALL WILL BE FLYING SOO. GOD BLESS YOU SND YOUR FAMILY.

Thanks God.... Somebody talking with Intelligence and compassion. It's the First Officers that need the most consideration.

About 50 first officers and about 45 captains prematurely terminated in these trying and taxing Covid19 times. With no other airline or company willing to recruit them due to heavy jugular bleeding themselves. You call this Fair or Just ? I call it CONVENIENCE. Just like everything else that saudia does. Treat everything and everyone on the same platform. Like an unpaid [email protected],,!! At the very least I call it HARAM.

About 50 first officers and about 45 captains prematurely terminated in these trying and taxing Covid19 times. With no other airline or company willing to recruit them due to heavy jugular bleeding themselves. You call this Fair or Just ? I call it CONVENIENCE. Just like everything else that SAUDIA does. Treat everything and everyone on the same platform. Like an unpaid [email protected] At the very least I call it HARAM. And someone somewhere shall pay for it.

Well, I think from what I heard that Saudia also is suffering as all other airlines in this Corona Crisis. So, if any airline in the world would think of letting go of employees, of course those would be the expats not the locals because if they chose the locals, the union or the media will criticize that.

besides, Saudia according to what I know was used to pay the highest to the expats. Especially, the re-contract bonus, and the kids education to homeland schools that some took advantage of that to earn more. So, maybe the airline decided that enough is enough, especially SAUDIZATION is a must by end of 2020 by force from higher authorities.

To all Saudia expats, lets be mature and stop insulting the airline by calling and mentioning bad words, remember that the airline hired lots of jobless pilots and has given pilots alot. So, Stop misleading others by accusing local pilots of being lousy and accusing local co-pilots of being bad and not ready for command. All airlines know what is right for them or wrong, they care about Safety, and High level of Safety was never related to having more expats in an airline. And instead of Mourning your Luck, You better from now on think of solutions for you and look for somewhere else in the world.

In brief, It is crystal clear, that all airlines are suffering, so they make pay cuts, they force people to leave, or they shut down and collapse, so take it or leave it.

Every ‘other world’ airline follows basic humane rules of employment and termination. The termination clause used to be just a simple formality that was inserted decades ago by bean counters and lawyers. More a myth than a reality. SAUDIA has managed to make it a very stark reality ! And what a sad time to do it. When pilots needed some little form of assurity if nothing else. Something like kicking a dying man on his hospital bed !

Gentlemen, Showing your frustration on here will not achieve anything.

We are in the midst of a "force majeure". Six months unpaid leave is a reasonable action from the company.

To the guys who have been terminated: Saudiisation is a certainty. The Saudi's want it and there's no stopping it. However using this "Force Majeure" to expedite the process is very obviously anti humanitarian, let's say. Simply, they're putting you on the street with no prospect of obtaining employment within your profession, your family will be exposed to risk of poverty. I am certain, that amongst yourselves you've discussed actions. In my view, I think that you should set yourselves an achievable goal, such as; you request 6 months unpaid leave and then a contract which will terminate on December 31st 2021. A point in time when you may reasonably expect employment elsewhere. You should then express this solution to the company citing your humanitarian concerns. You may then need diplomatic support for your "reasonable proposal". In the United States you'd contact your senator and your embassy for the support. In the UK you'd contact your Parliament member and the Embassy, Europeans and Malaysians will have a similar system.

Really.... your lack of historical knowledge is so obvious ! Slavery has been around since thousands of years, across the whole world. Every empire that has risen has used some form of slavery. From Asia to Africa, in the Americas and in Europe.

Great Saudia (handle says it all) forgot to justify forced marriage, marriage to minors, polygamy and female genital mutilation. It is quite scary to think someone so deluded and deranged is allowed anywhere near aircraft.

EDIT: this post may not make much sense now, but it is a comment in reply to a religious and xenophobic rant by Great Saudia - which in turn provoked some home truths from other PPRuNers (all posts since deleted). Read between the lines.

Indeed... your post is also absolute senseless nonsense ! Sounds like the mad ramblings of some right-wing KKK Christian fanatic ! FGM pre-dates Arab civilisations and Islam by hundreds, if not thousands, of years, originating in Africa and not Arabia. Polygamy is practiced in many different religious societies around the world, ( even if the national governing laws prohibit it ), as forced / arranged marriage is as well. Under-age marriage is still legal in many parts of the world - a quarter of the States in the U.S.A. have no minimum age for girls to marry, and the age of consent in well over a dozen European countries ( including Germany and Sweden ) is only 14 or 15.

Nuweiba, get a grip. And read some of your history. The first written reference to slavery is in the Babylonian Code of Hammurabi back in 1860 BC. Slavery was practiced by the Sumerians as far back as 3500 BC. And the massive trade of over 17 million Africans to Arabia and then more widely was orchestrated by muslim arabs from various regions of what is now the Middle East. To be fair, this trade existed in pre-muslim Arabia, going back to the times I referenced earlier.And in Saudi Arabia, slavery was officially banned in 1962, after pressure from Great Britain.

Last edited by RoyHudd; 22nd Apr 2020 at 11:18.
Reason: English grammar

Nuweiba, get a grip. And read some of your history. The first written reference to slavery is in the Babylonian Code of Nammurabi back in 1860 BC. Slavery was practiced by the Sumerians as far back as 3500 BC. And the massive trade of over 17 million Africans to Arabia and then more widely was orchestrated by muslim arabs from various regions of what is now the Middle East. To be fair, this trade existed in pre-muslim Arabia, going back to the times I referenced earlier.And in Saudi Arabia, slavery was officially banned in 1962, after pressure from Great Britain.

Your post only reinforces my claim that your knowledge is somewhat lacking. Itís Hammurabi and not Nammurabi. You can not consider the Babylonian Empire to be part of Arabia any more than you would consider Ancient Egypt. And slavery existed around the world thousands of years before the first written records of slavery - in fact, slavery existed thousands of years before writing in any form was established ! It is you who needs to get a grip and stop being so biased !

By far the most entertaining thread on this site... much needed these times ... keep it up chaps! Joking aside, my commiserations to any pilot losing their job these days - be they expats, Saudi's or others.

As Fatbus pointed out, any expats taking on a job in the middle east are fully aware of the risks and conditions - that is why you are being paid a premium for working there. Complaining about it ex-post is unseemly and disingenuous. Personally I enjoyed my time in Saudi, and the vast majority of the Saudi's I met were stand-up people. Although I had my share of "unexpected" experiences, I'm not bitter and I hold the country in great affection. I've certainly met more bad apples on the streets of London, Paris, LA, etc...

Been an expat for 40 years, including 10 years in JED. One thing I have learned is that stereotyping people based on their nationality never works. Pretty much all humans are equal. Good apples and bad apples come from every harvest.

Living in Jeddah was fun, the lack of alcohol was not an insurmountable problem, the diving, sailing and golf was pretty good and the social life was most excellent. We had fun and really enjoyed our time and still hold fond memories of KSA and our many Saudi friends.

The nastiness displayed in this thread does not do anyone any favors. Worse still, it makes the profession look pretty low class.

ps... is that old sand golf course (Desert Lakes Golf Club) just north of the airport still there? Please don't tell me its been converted to yet another shopping mall!

Seems like you were in Jeddah pre dinosaur era lucille. No offense meant, but after centuries of greedily living off of the hard earned money of poor( sometimes very poor )pilgrims coming to Mecca for Haj and, decades of making easy oil money from the taxpayers of the world, all of this must come to an end. Itís time the hunter became the hunted and the tables were turned. The free oil tap has now been cut off, the fake tourism in the name of religion into Mecca has been shut down and one of their major free consumers of oil ie Saudia Airlines has been brought to its knees. If this doesnít teach the SAUDI Arab a lesson in humanity and its power, then Iím afraid he will only learn when he has to eat sand for breakfast followed by a stiff drink of the now useless crude oil and then a visit to an empty mosque in Mecca. Combined with stratospheric egos, corruption in their DNA and an unmatched greed for money, this nation settling into the nameless shifting sands vey soon as just another unmarked giant dune is simply inevitable. Nature strikes back and itís time to pay ! The price may be too heavy for some I fear. I however even now pray that they learn to be humane before the hand of allah strikes them their final blow. Getting bad curses and worse duas from 3-400 expat pilots losing their jobs at a time like this isnít going to help their cause much Iím afraid.

I would agree with that completely Lucifer. In fact many pilots in Saudia are considering international legal action against the airline on grounds of its racist approach towards some pilot communities and issuance of termination letters to some whilst awarding no pay leave to others. This is a huge tsunami just waiting to engulf the airline now !

I would agree with that completely Lucifer. In fact many pilots in Saudia are considering international legal action against the airline on grounds of its racist approach towards some pilot communities and issuance of termination letters to some whilst awarding no pay leave to others. This is a huge tsunami just waiting to engulf the airline now !

This has to be the best humour I have read all week. A huge tsunami.... LMAO. As opposed to the near total shut down of the airline?

Termination versus Unpaid Leave appears more to do with fleet type than nationality. I feel for anyone effected, just not seeing a race issue.

IMHO... 330 Guys are an endangered species at the airline, they were not flying much before covid. 320 expats were offered UPL, domestic ops shut down last and will most likely start up first. There was high demand before covid. 777 is a coin toss.